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Kidney function is essential for life and health. Without it, blood and all its critical contents don’t get purged, refreshed, balanced and restored.

For this reason, nephrology — the study and treatment of kidney disease — is one of the most critical areas of medicine, providing care that influences conditions with some of the greatest impact on society, including heart disease, diabetes and hypertension. Care for kidney disease in the U.S. annually costs many tens of billions of dollars and makes for one of the largest categories of national healthcare expenditures.

Early recognition and intervention are essential to slowing the progress of kidney disease, maintaining quality of life and improving long-term prognosis.

Nephrologists (kidney doctors) such as those at Lourdes are specially trained to focus just on kidney and kidney-related care. At Lourdes, their experience with a large population of patients requiring medical care for kidney ailments and deficiency keeps them on the foremost edge of diagnostic and treatment techniques.

Nephrologists at Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center and Lourdes Medical Center of Burlington County are skilled at helping patients with all types of kidney disorders, including persons who are in need of dialysis. Using the latest medical guidelines created by national experts, Lourdes nephrologists are working hard to help keep at-risk individuals from needing dialysis. This proactive approach allows patients to gain control of medical conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure, which contribute to kidney disease (also known as kidney insufficiency).

As a Regional Organ Transplantation Center, Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center provides comprehensive care for patients with advanced kidney disease, listed as eligible for kidney transplant. The center’s nephrologists and transplant coordinators work with transplant surgeons, nurses, social workers and other medical staff to assure a smooth transition to surgery and beyond.

Kidney function: Can’t live without it

Kidneys are indispensable mediators of physical function in the human body. This pair of organs — in the lower back-side of the abdomen and smaller each than their owner’s fist — are physiologic dynamos that:

remove water and waste from the blood;

concentrate urine;

balance the acidity of the blood and its minerals and electrolytes;

control red-blood-cell production;

regulate bone metabolism;

and help modulate blood pressure.

Each of these functions, in turn, affects multiple body systems.

In daily patient care, Lourdes nephrologists collaborate with primary-care physicians, endocrinologists, radiologists and cardiologists. Learn more about Lourdes’ highly experienced services in the following areas of kidney care —